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Redhot Ranch
Redhot Ranch was founded by Barry Nemerow and Jeff Greenfield — the same duo behind The Wieners Circle — starting with a single hot dog stand in 2005 near White Sox Park on the South Side, built around reviving the classic Chicago-style "Depression Dog": mustard, relish, onion, sport peppers, and fresh-cut fries, no ketchup in sight. The burger came later and almost as an afterthought, which makes its current popularity a bit of a reversal of the original plan. In 2014, the team opened two more locations and added a double cheeseburger modeled directly on In-N-Out's format — a style that barely existed in Chicago's home-grown fast-food scene at the time. The charburger caught on fast enough that it quickly outpaced the hot dogs that built the brand in the first place, developing its own cult following across Chicagoland independent of Redhot Ranch's original identity as a hot dog stand. That hot dog pedigree still matters for context: Redhot Ranch was inducted into the Hot Dog Hall of Fame as its 151st member, recognition for the original Depression Dog rather than the burger — a reminder that this is fundamentally a Chicago hot dog stand that happens to also make an excellent smash-style cheeseburger, not a burger restaurant that added dogs as an afterthought. Nemerow and Greenfield's earlier work at The Wieners Circle is worth knowing for anyone expecting a quiet counter-service experience — both businesses share a certain unapologetic, no-frills Chicago attitude, prioritizing the food over polish or hospitality theater. That same directness carries over to the burger: no elaborate build, no house sauce mythology, just a well-executed double-patty smashburger sold at a genuine value price point across three no-nonsense counter locations. Nemerow and Greenfield's first Redhot Ranch (originally called 35th Street Redhots) opened in the summer of 2005 near the old Comiskey Park/White Sox Park area on the South Side, well before the burger existed at all. The RHR charburger itself has a specific origin story: the pair got the idea in 2013 while eating at an In-N-Out in Las Vegas, and came home to build their own version — fresh patties, melted cheese, mustard, ketchup, sport peppers, lettuce, tomato, onion, and a house special sauce — onto a menu that had spent its first eight years focused entirely on hot dogs. In April 2024, the city of Chicago gave Redhot Ranch an honorary day alongside its formal induction into the Hot Dog Hall of Fame, civic recognition unusual for a business that, by that point, had arguably become just as well known for its burger as for the hot dog stand that built its name. For a Chicago cheeseburger list, Redhot Ranch is the essential "West Coast smashburger format done by South Side hot dog guys" entry — an In-N-Out-style double cheeseburger built by two people whose actual expertise and reputation was forged making Chicago dogs, now sold at three counter-service locations across the city.
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Mott St
Mott St is, first and foremost, an Asian fusion restaurant in Chicago's Wicker Park/West Town area — Korean street food sits at its core, with flavors pulled in from Japan, China, Mexico, and Italy across the rest of the menu. The burger isn't the restaurant's original concept, but chef/partner Edward Kim's Mott Street Burger has become one of the things the restaurant is most specifically known for among people who might otherwise never think to order a burger at a Korean-inspired restaurant. The burger itself reflects the kitchen's wider sensibility rather than playing it straight: double chuck patties, hoisin aioli, pickled jalapeños, and sweet potato frizzles on a brioche bun, balancing sweet and spicy in a way that's distinctly Mott St rather than a conventional diner or smashburger build. One detail matters for anyone planning a visit specifically for the burger — it's only available at the bar, and only after 7pm, which keeps it feeling like an insider order rather than a standard menu item available all day. That restriction is part of what's built the burger's specific cult following: it's not the headline dish on the menu, and Mott St isn't marketed as a burger restaurant, so ordering it requires knowing to ask for it at the right time in the right seat — the kind of detail that turns a good burger into a specifically-sought-out one. Mott St's broader Korean street food menu — the restaurant's actual core identity — gives the burger useful context: this is a kitchen already comfortable working with bold, sweet-savory-spicy flavor combinations across an entire menu, which is exactly the skill set that makes hoisin aioli and pickled jalapeños on a burger feel considered rather than like a novelty mashup. Regulars who come specifically for the burger are, whether they realize it or not, benefiting from a kitchen that spent years developing that flavor sensibility on dishes that have nothing to do with beef. Mott St is chef Edward Kim's second restaurant, following Ruxbin, which he opened in Wicker Park in 2011 with his wife Jenny, sister Vicki, and friend Nate Chung after training in kitchens in Los Angeles, Seoul, and New York — including a stint under Thomas Keller at Per Se. Mott St followed two years later as a more casual, family-style counterpart to Ruxbin's tasting-menu format, and it's since become a 13-time Michelin Bib Gourmand recipient, recognition for the kitchen's broader Korean street food menu rather than the burger specifically. That fine-dining pedigree matters for understanding the burger's construction: Kim isn't a burger chef improvising a Korean twist, he's a Per Se-trained cook applying the same technique and flavor-balancing instincts he uses across Mott St's whole menu to a single bar-only, after-7pm item most diners don't even know to ask for. For a Chicago cheeseburger list, Mott St is the essential "fusion kitchen's secret burger" entry — proof that some of the city's best cheeseburgers are coming out of kitchens that aren't burger restaurants at all, built by chefs applying a completely different cuisine's techniques to a very American format.
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